German wind park protest group MenschNatur posted here explaining how even adding more wind and solar capacity does not make Germany’s energy supply any more reliable, but in fact may even make it less so.

Time and again the proponents of the Energiewende (transition to green energies) promote the idea that we must invest massively in more wind and solar power plants and that only an accelerated expansion can save the transformation to green energies.

Thus the wind energy protest group MenschNatur has taken a closer look at the increase in installed nominal capacity over the past years and compared it to what actually gets fed into the grid.

How increases in wind generator capacity affects the feed-in power is described in the following diagram. MenschNatur plotted the installed capacity of all German onshore wind turbines from 2014 to 2018, along with what actually got fed in.

Figure 1: Expansion of rated installed wind power capacity and the power that actually got fed into the grid in Germany. Chart: MenschNatur, by Rolf Schuster.

From the beginning of 2014 until the end of 2018 we saw an increase in wind generator capacity in Germany from 33,114 MW to 52,422 MW, i.e. 19,308 MW (red line above the light blue field).

The dark blue, jagged field is the wind power that got fed-in. For better comparability, they averaged the added wind generator capacity data and the average feed-in values for each year. As you can see, the increased added wind generator capacity (red dotted lines) increased at a more or less steady rate each year. However, the average wind power that got fed in (yellow line) does not keep pace with the rate of added capacity.

More installed capacity, yet less output!

For example there was an average of 35,869 MW of installed capacity in 2014 and only 5718 MW (15.9%) was fed in on average. In 2016, over 3,500 megawatts of wind capacity was added, yet the amount that got fed into the grid dropped fed by more than 500 MW due to calm weather conditions!

We can can conclude: Despite the addition of state-of-the-art wind turbines, the feed-in capacity can still fall. The output depends heavily on the year-to-year weather conditions.

In fact in real time, the power that gets fed-in by wind and sun in Germany can come close to zero in times of no wind and sun, as the following chart below shows for January 2019:

The upper horizontal line represents total installed sun and wind capacity = 105,000 MW. Yet, for example on January 25, There was a night where almost nothing got fed in by wind and sun. Not once was the 105,000 MW of installed capacity able to even come close to supplying Germany’s peak power demands of 75,000 MW.

Another stark example is September, 2017:

Dark blue field is the power that got fed into the grid. Source: www.vernunftkraft.de/, Chart by Rolf Schuster

In September, 2017, the 53,000 MW of installed wind power capacity was able to deliver almost nothing for days.

MenschNatur adds that even tripling Germany’s current installed capacity to over 300,00 megawatts would still not be able to fill in the gaps, and often would produce huge surpluses of power that would totally throw the energy markets out of whack.

57 responses to “Unreliable Power Source…Adding Capacity Does Little To Solve Germany’s Green Energy Power Gaps”

It’s not complicated
On an electricity grid you have proper “on demand power” from fuels
and a completely different thing; INTERMITTENT Power from solar/wind.
Constructing new solar/wind, amounts to decreasing the % of “on demand power”, on the grid, therefore making it less reliable/resilient.

No amount of intermittent power can improve a national grid where the power requirements are fully met by reliable power generation. It matters not that the power source is burning fuel (coal, oil, or gas), hydro-electric, nuclear or a mix of them. When they supply reliable power to the customer (as and when demanded) at an affordable price, additional intermittent power generation isn’t required. And that was the situation before Energiewende.

Currently inserting intermittent power generation (where not needed) requires that the reliable generation must back off when the intermittent power is available and quickly respond when they’re not. This requirement will cause a rise in cost as the intermittent suppliers effectively jump the line in supplying to the customer not because it is the most cost effective but just because it is there. When intermittent power is available but is not required it is either restrained and make-up payments (more subsidy) is applied, or dumped on to other out of country grids. Either way the public pay for this inefficiency.
Also when intermittent power generation is inserted on to the grid, the logistics and costs of managing the grid increase massively. Without massive subsidy wind and solar with its consequential re-engineering of the grid would be a non-starter. However when a nation throws €billions of public money, in the form of multiple layers of subsidy, at the intermittent power generation industry all other (reliable) generators suffer and may eventually die off in the skewed market.

Hopefully Germany may wish to continue with a successful deployment of Energiewende, welcoming a consequential benefit to all other industrial and industrializing nations.

all other (reliable) generators suffer and may eventually die off in the skewed market.

That is the idea essentially. Phase out fossil fuel power generation and along the way, we picked up nuclear as well, since it’s also not a wise idea to use that without being able to deal with the waste (another discussion, please don’t jump onto this).

Hopefully Germany may wish to continue with a successful deployment of Energiewende, welcoming a consequential benefit to all other industrial and industrializing nations.

What a strange wish you have there. Countries investing in sustainable energy technology will end up ahead in this in the long run. Leaning back and letting others do the heavy lifting might work in the short term (as it does in most scenarios), but that’s more like waiting for used cars to buy. If everyone would do this there would be no used cars available to buy … right?

Unreliable power generation is not required in a modern industrialized country, unless Germany really does wish to de-industrialize and move it’s manufacturing to foreign pro-industrial countries. And that is what Germany will do once a fully successful deployment of Energiewende is achieved.
Of course I don’t consider that SebastianH will see the logic of this argument as he appears to be fully enamored with the idea of unsustainable and unreliable wind and solar power generation.

Need to create graph of installed capacity wind + solar vs used on a seasonal average. Then get a trend, not necessarily linear. Also split the seasons. Once max usefulness has been reached, ratio will decline – summer season would be my expectation.

The article includes some very obvious observations presented as news. This kind of surprises me. Is MenschNatur trying to use well-known facts as an argument against something that was constructed with these facts well-known? Does this make sense? Next someone will claim that solar power is nonsense because it is dark at night?

Yes, wind and solar are intermittent. And no, this is not a surprise to the rest of us. Nobody is expecting wind and solar to cover 100% of the load without storage. And you can store electricity in batteries just fine. It gets pretty expensive when you want to do that for seasonal variations … and that’s why other forms of storage (less efficient ones) come into play for those.

The thing is, that we don’t need storage right now. And yet critics act like storage would be missing today and therefore this can never work. Maybe I should finally write this energy flow simulator for Germany’s grid that I was talking about here in 2017 … just so skeptics can play with it and see that it is not that great of a problem.

“Nobody is expecting wind and solar to cover 100% of the load without storage. And you can store electricity in batteries just fine.” – SebH the deceitful

SebH has not problem lying about what can be done.

No, you can NOT “store electricity in batteries just fine”! NOT on the scale that would be required to power a modern nation.

see here…https://www.cfact.org/2018/11/17/batteries-not-included-in-renewable-fantasy-plans/“So here we are, needing a stupendous amount of battery storage capacity in order to get to 100% renewable generation, with nothing. Where is this taken care of in the 100% fantasy plans? Why aren’t the politicians talking about batteries, when they are a bigger deal than wind and solar? Where will all these batteries come from, and where will they go?”

You’ve got to love articles of people who write like the author over there. How they pull out numbers of what amount and kind of batteries we would need out of thin air is amazing.

But let’s use it. 1000 GW of available battery power from a 120 TWh battery. I have no idea why you’d want to bridge 5 whole days from batteries, do you? At 5000 or 10000 possible cycles this would mean this battery capacity would last 68.5 to 137 years until the cycles are used up … way longer than their material life time. What you want to do with batteries is maximize the usage of cycles, ideally charging and discharching them multiple times a day. That’s what drives costs down massively. For longer periods of no wind/solar you’ll go towards other kinds of storage, like gas (either hydrogen or methane). Less efficient, but since you’ll need it seldomly, still cheaper than using a battery for the same purpose.

I’ve simulated this for Germany a while back and you’ll end up burning gas generated by surplus electricity around 10 to 20% of the time. Having a system like that also enables you to not needing to build battery capacity that lasts for even a day. It just has to compensate for short term fluctuations … you know, where it is economical.

And economical it is. A kWh is expected to cost around $100 in the near term and when mass produced will certainly approach the material costs some day in the future. Let’s say it lasts for 10000 cycles or roughly 20 years of service. This would add 0.01$ to every kWh provided by the battery. Let’s also assume we can only use 50% of the generated renewable energy directly and the rest goes through the battery system. You’ll end up with half a dollar cent on top of the regular electricity price for having battery storage to smooth out the daily variations.

About scale: global battery capacity production is expected to increase to 1000 GWh per year in just 10 years from now. That would be more than enough to keep pace with storage needs. I see no problem there.

The U.S. doesn’t need a 120 TWh battery and it doesn’t need a 24 TWh (one day of storage) battery either in the next 10 years.

BTW: for Germany a 5 TWh battery would be enough to get through the year without using backup gas power plants.

Basically, what SebH claims is a done deal is not, and if we even attempt it, it would be “astronomically expensive.”

You are doing it again. Why are you trying to extrapolate from the current state without considering price development and advances in technology? If the same author would have written his piece 10 years ago the numbers would have been even more ridiculous and if he writes it in 10 years again, it will be very different as well.

If you want to destroy modern civilization, “renewable (aka “ruinable”) energy” is the way to go.

Everything important the activists claim to know is as wrong as wrong can be.

Nobody and nothing is destroying modern civilization. Climate change might be capable of doing that, but thankfully alarmists (and yes, you are one) like you are in the minority. I am confident we will make it through it with non “civilization ending” consequences.

Critics (and skeptics) should get their numbers right and don’t try to live in the past. Do a realistic analysis and you’ll come to vastly different outcomes.

Yeah, he is heavily investing in battery research and other storage methods. Also in nuclear designs, but he also thinks renewables can go from 5% to 25% of the world’s energy mix in a faster time than any other source of energy did it in the past.

Yonason, batteries will solve the problem of daily variations. They will most likely not become cheap enough to solve longer variation periods. Why? Because you won’t use all available charge cycles in the lifetime of the battery if you use them in such a scenario. Seasonal variations will most likely be dealt with by implementing power2gas together with using gas power plants.

Thank you for calling me a liar and delusional fool though. Very classy and surely a working strategy to cope with losing a debate.

Interesting. While Gates shows in my link that he realizes that the current technology of renewables and batteries cannot power civilization, the link provided by SebH shows Gates to be as delusional as he is, thinking that maybe someday it might, if only we squander enough resources.

Bill Gates’ honest assessment of what can be done with RE and batteries now cannot be countered by his belief that maybe in the future we will be able to. But then, that’s the extent of troll logic, that what’s impossible now is irrelevant because MAYBE …whatever. Fantasies do NOT trump facts, except in what passes for the minds of post-modern dreamers.

Interesting. While Gates shows in my link that he realizes that the current technology of renewables and batteries cannot power civilization, the link provided by SebH shows Gates to be as delusional as he is, thinking that maybe someday it might, if only we squander enough resources.

Wonder why that is? One is Tony Heller propaganda, the other is written by Bill Gates himself (don’t know if you realize this, doesn’t look like it).

Also interesting is that if you watch the video I provided in it’s entirety

Please don’t expect that I or anyone else who wants to keep his/her sanity will ever watch a Tony Heller video in its entirety.

Bill Gates’ honest assessment of what can be done with RE and batteries now cannot be countered by his belief that maybe in the future we will be able to.

Yeah, when you expect the world to stop tomorrow you probably can’t expect anything. I wonder if you expected to always drive your very first car and never have a newer one in your life.

But then, that’s the extent of troll logic, that what’s impossible now is irrelevant because MAYBE …whatever. Fantasies do NOT trump facts, except in what passes for the minds of post-modern dreamers.

Nope, … normal people logic it is. When we see a car driving towards us, we expect it will continue to drive in that direction and jump to the side. You on the other hand seem to realize there is a car, ignore the trajectory and tell people next to you that it won’t hit you.

Predictions can be wrong, yes. But not that wrong. Batteries are already pretty cheap and are good for thousands of cycles. And that’s after less than 10 years of car companies investing in the technology. It is not unreasonable to assume the development will continue for at least another decade. Same with other variables … I find it highly questionable when someone expects that everything will arrive at a stand still today and further improvements are impossible. Are you still using a 15 inch CRT monitor to view this blog?

As written, the quote is out of context. And I wonder how your question “just how stupid are you, anyway?” was not moderated. But thanks for letting me know the level you are on, with every comment you make …

A few months back you and I found that over 60% RE (your number) would need industrial scale storage.

I mentioned that the only practical scalable storage solution are Lithium batteries, to which you replied:”Repeat after me! Lithium batteries cannot be used”.
I’m too lazy to dig up the exact quote but maybe some energetic fellow NoTricsZoner who is more ambitious than I am could oblige. I’m pretty sure you remember your stern admonition “repeat after me”.

At that time, you also declared, and this is a verbatim quote:
“The only problem I see is seasonal storage”.
I commended you and rewarded you for that flash of insight by sending you a link to an article on the ins and outs of batteries,inverters, line frequency detectors and whatnot to disabuse you of the notion that batteries were faster than rotating iron for inertial response.

And now you are back to 100% RE supported by batteries!
What gives?
What made you change your mind?

I mentioned that the only practical scalable storage solution are Lithium batteries, to which you replied:”Repeat after me! Lithium batteries cannot be used”.

I am pretty sure if I wrote something like that, I was writing about seasonal storage. I’m pretty consistent when it comes to talking about batteries … call me a battery enthusiast if you will. Ever since lithium batteries became cheap enough for hobbyists flying small devices took off (pun intended).

I commended you and rewarded you for that flash of insight by sending you a link to an article on the ins and outs of batteries,inverters, line frequency detectors and whatnot to disabuse you of the notion that batteries were faster than rotating iron for inertial response.

I remember and no, you didn’t make me realize that seasons storage is a problem with batteries. Batteries being “slower” than rotating mass also has nothing to do with seasonal storage. If batteries and inverters were really too slow one could use flywheels for those purposes. Providing frequency stabilisation at a higher scale (e.g. larger than ms timeframes) is still much faster by using batteries and inverters than using traditional power plants.

And now you are back to 100% RE supported by batteries!
What gives?
What made you change your mind?

My mind didn’t change. Batteries for short term storage (flywheels if one does really care about keeping frequencies that stable in the ms area) and other storage means for the long term (e.g. seasonal, multiple days of darkness and windless weather).

And the true economic solution for the short time is not batteries but building more brown coal and gas burning generator plants. All climatic evidence points to human generated CO2 does NOT matter. That is SebastianH you can show it does with unequivocal evidence. You can’t because it does not exist.

Maybe that is why SebastianH’s pie in the sky dream of batteries are a non-starter. Uneconomic in the long term and over expensive in the short term.

And no I can not believe you think for yourself you just reiterate the same consensus fantasy. What a daft idea!
You’ll be trying to explain how CO2 overheats the oceans again, will you? Or maybe you can’t because there is NO evidence.

All you have is your virtual world of poorly performing computer climate models and nothing else.
In contrast I live in the real world

To paraphrase Hamlet —

SebastianH: O day and night, but this is wondrous strange!
Hamlet: And therefore as a stranger give it welcome. There are more things in heaven and earth, SebastianH, Than are dreamt of in your fantastic climate models.

I say “nope” because you are wrong. Since you don’t offer anything to support your wild fantasies, there is nothing to refute anyway. You just claim it is like you believe it is, because “you live in reality” … Yeah right.

I’m interested in acyclovir cream reviews Labor groups and allies have been calling for a “livingwage” at retailers and fast-food companies across the country ascompanies face increased competition for labor with the U.S.unemployment rate at its lowest in more than six years.

Why is it not possible to reply to the comments in post called “The German Green New Deal: “The 12 Commandments To Stop Global Heating” Cornerstone For New Religion:”? The strategy to leave your diciples ridiculous comments stand last and delete any reply below theirs to make it look like I would be out of words and gave up because their “logic” is irrefutable, is pretty lame. It sure works, but as skeptics you should stand above that. On the other hand this is exactly what any extremist website (on both sides) does with their comment section.

You promote fire and forget comments and let it look like you’ve “won” the discussions. Fun times …

So, assuming Germany had trillions to spend on batteries, and that those batteries were available, where would the power to charge the batteries come from?

Germany just needs a few hundred GWh of batteries for the daily variations at best. Using Tesla Powerwalls which are still pretty expensive (500€ per kWh including everything) this would amount to roughly 50 billion €.

Your question is an interesting one though. Where would the power to charge come from? Well, first there would have to be a surplus of power. It doesn’t make sense to charge batteries while you could use the power directly. So once we have regular surplus power, we can charge batteries with that. At first we would probably see a few MW of surplus at some times and wouldn’t need much capacity to store that. Later we might occasionally see GW of surplus and would increase storage accordingly. You see, we don’t need to first have to spend “trillions” on batteries before renewables can and will be storable. Claiming this constantly just makes you look very ignorant.

Oh and if we have multiple days of zero surplus in that battery future, well … we turn on the gas power plants and use all the gas made by Power2gas facilities in long stretches of surplus when all batteries were sitting there at 100% charge. That’s the basic concept of nearly every “how to power society with 100% renewables” study and yet you seem to completely ignore those “details” and try to claim that it is not possible to store electricity with batteries and thus we are all losing our minds or something like that … if that’s not trolling, then what is it?

So – how are you going to get to 100% RE if batteries are ‘out’ for seasonal storage?
The usual crap about p2p, compressed air, trains-on-a-slope, hundreds of Goldisthals, herds of unicorns?

If you look at Rolf Schuster’s excellent graphs, even you would have to deal in reality: at this point, you are nowhere near generating the excess energy necessary for any scheme, including no-cost batteries if they existed. And this after planting 20k or so windmills.

If you look at Rolf Schuster’s excellent graphs, even you would have to deal in reality: at this point, you are nowhere near generating the excess energy necessary for any scheme, including no-cost batteries if they existed. And this after planting 20k or so windmills.

Captain obvious, you are telling it as it is. We are nowhere near generating any excess, so why are you guys demanding that we have to implement storage now otherwise everything sucks? Storage begins to make sense when you have excess.

Batteries don’t need to be no-cost. Take a current battery (Tesla Powerwall) at roughly 500€ per kWh. At 5000 cycles you’ll pay 0.10€ extra on every kWh that goes through the battery. This is already economical in Germany, where you only get 0.12€ when you sell to the grid, but have to buy electricity for 0.27€ from the grid.

Costs are expected to approach material costs for any mass produces product. In fact it is said that we are already at 100€ per kWh (and you can buy small lithium batteries at close that price for modell aircrafts) … then it’s only 0.02€ per kWh on top of every kWh that goes through a battery.

Be realistic for a change.

Yes, be realistic. Don’t imagine things up to justify to yourself that all new things are bad and would never work.

I don’t recall ‘demanding implementation of storage now’ and my name is not ‘you guys’ or ‘Captain Obvious’. How old are you? 16?
I asked a very simple and very appropriate question:

– Utility scale storage will be necessary as of 60% RE in order to get to 100% RE,
– Utility scale storage is nowhere in sight and in all likelihood will never become reality.

And the question was: how are you going to implement 100% RE?

The Fraunhofer ‘study’ you sent me is herding unicorns, and I’m being kind. Quintupling the current fleet of windmills/solar panels to 500GW? At a totally wasteful efficiency of 20%?
That’s right off the bat a non-starter.

Further downstream, they kill expensive RE with P2G and subsequent G2P with an overall efficiency of around 30%, murder some more by turning it into low grade thermal storage, throw totally disqualified solar thermal in the mix and for good measure propose to cut down the heating of buildings by 50%. Invoke heatpumps, too, just to avoid gas.

For the current state of P2G, punch up ‘Audi e-gas’ in Wertle, where Audi is turning six megawatts into a whopping two megawatts worth of hydrogen in ‘the world’s largest power to gas plant’, this per their press release of July 2015. Not much news since then.
BTW, I’m struggling with the unit capacity designation of their battery packs: TWhrs into GWhrs and TWhrs out? You think they meant GW?

Let me ask you a second question: why do you think Frau Merkel/Frau Kramp-Karrenbauer are bringing in 100 billion cubic meters of Russian gas per year through Nordstream 1+2 as of 2020?
I’ll give you a hint:
Might it be because the last nuclear power plant will be switched off in two years and with coal on its way out in another 15?
A further hint: maybe also because the Energiewende stinks?

I don’t recall ‘demanding implementation of storage now’ and my name is not ‘you guys’ or ‘Captain Obvious’. How old are you? 16?

Not going to debate age here, but “you guys” are all the same here to me. Like mirror images of each other. There is no diversity in climate skepticism and that’s why I often refer to you guys as “you guys”. Sorry if that confused some of you.

– Utility scale storage will be necessary as of 60% RE in order to get to 100% RE,

Yes.

– Utility scale storage is nowhere in sight and in all likelihood will never become reality.

No.

Quintupling the current fleet of windmills/solar panels to 500GW? At a totally wasteful efficiency of 20%?
That’s right off the bat a non-starter.

Why is stating the obvious something you do to claim that something isn’t working? It’s working exactly as expected. Nobody is expecting a wind turbine to produce electricity 100% of the time. And nope, it is not a non-starter to increase the installed capacity of wind turbines. In fact, since the year this study came out wind turbine capacity (in Germany) doubled already!

Further downstream, they kill expensive RE with P2G and subsequent G2P with an overall efficiency of around 30%, murder some more by turning it into low grade thermal storage, throw totally disqualified solar thermal in the mix and for good measure propose to cut down the heating of buildings by 50%. Invoke heatpumps, too, just to avoid gas.

The only one disqualifyingly mixing things together is you right here. Wow!

But yeah, Power2gas is wasteful, yet it beats storing electricity in batteries for a long time period. About expensive renewables … you know what they used as prices? 1000€ per kW for photovoltaics, 1080€ per kW for Wind onshore and 1800 € per kW offshore. Oh, and 300€ per battery kWh with them lasting only 3000 cycles. Guess where we are today …

For the current state of P2G, punch up ‘Audi e-gas’ in Wertle, where Audi is turning six megawatts into a whopping two megawatts worth of hydrogen in ‘the world’s largest power to gas plant’, this per their press release of July 2015. Not much news since then.

You are using your units wrong. And yeah, no big power2gas plants exist yet … want to know why? Because they are not needed! Usually technology gets implemented when demand for it exists … does this work differently in your world?

BTW, I’m struggling with the unit capacity designation of their battery packs: TWhrs into GWhrs and TWhrs out? You think they meant GW?

A link would have been nice to get to the bottom of your confusion with units.

Let me ask you a second question: why do you think Frau Merkel/Frau Kramp-Karrenbauer are bringing in 100 billion cubic meters of Russian gas per year through Nordstream 1+2 as of 2020?

Because natural gas is the bridge technology into the 100% renewables future. Gas power plants can be turned on and off much quicker and can work with both imported natural gas as well as generated natural gas. The storage infrastructure for that exists today (over 200 TWh of gas storage available in Germany).

May I give you a hint? Learn to unlearn! You aren’t open for what’s happening in reality and instead clinge to past “glory” trying to imagine all kind of problems with “new” technology. I bet electric vehicles are the devil incarnate for you as well, right?

‘A link would have been nice to get to the bottom of your confusion with units” and further ‘The only one disqualifyingly mixing things together is you right here. Wow!’

This is truly disappointing – it’s in the Fraunhofer ‘study’ you sent me. It’s obvious you did not read it and even skipped the pretty pictures.

It’s all right there: the batteries with the funny capacity units, the heatpumps, thermal storage, thermal solar, P2G and whatnot, all mixed together! Pumped storage too! It certainly looked qualifying to me. They put a lot of work in the diagrams.

As far as my question is concerned, still no answer. I think it’s because you full well know that, absent nuclear and coal, RE will be at best 30-40% of the electricity supply with imported erdgas making up the balance.

You are right about one thing though, I think electric cars are the devil’s invention. An amazing amount of Teslas used to clog up the carpool lane here in NorCal – one single person in a big-ass car that cannot even make it to LA on a single charge. Luckily, as of 1/1/19, the majority lost their privileged access and it sure made a difference. It’s very gratifying to see the Teslas signaling their green virtues from the slower lanes. Schadenfreude on my part, I admit.

Now go study the ‘100-erneuerbare-energien-fuer-strom-und-waerme-in-deutschland’ screed.

This is truly disappointing – it’s in the Fraunhofer ‘study’ you sent me. It’s obvious you did not read it and even skipped the pretty pictures.

I read and understand the whole thing.

It’s all right there: the batteries with the funny capacity units, the heatpumps, thermal storage, thermal solar, P2G and whatnot, all mixed together! Pumped storage too! It certainly looked qualifying to me. They put a lot of work in the diagrams.

You didn’t understand what I meant by my remark and now I doubt you understand how the supply/storage works in the study. Yes, it is a mixture. Do you unterstand how they arrived at those mixtures for certain scenarios?

Here is your link again, be serious and apply yourself:

Please stop that behaviour.

As far as my question is concerned, still no answer. I think it’s because you full well know that, absent nuclear and coal, RE will be at best 30-40% of the electricity supply with imported erdgas making up the balance.

LOLOL – the out of control little professor, who has no respect for anyone else here and who tramples all social norms, gives K. Pool the I have the moral high ground treatment; telling him ”Please stop that behaviour.” (which he clearly deserved).

I don’t recall ‘demanding implementation of storage now’ and my name is not ‘you guys’ or ‘Captain Obvious’.
I asked a very simple and very appropriate question:

– Utility scale storage will be necessary as of 60% RE in order to get to 100% RE
– Utility scale storage is nowhere in sight and in all likelihood will never become reality

And the question was: how are you going to implement 100% RE?

The Fraunhofer ‘study’ you sent me is herding unicorns, and I’m being kind. Quintupling the current fleet of windmills/solar panels to 500GW? With an atrocious efficiency of 20%? A non-starter.

Further downstream, they kill expensive RE with P2G and subsequent G2P with an overall efficiency of around 30%, murder some more by turning it into low grade thermal storage, invoke totally disqualified solar thermal and for good measure propose to cut down the heating of buildings by 50%. Oh yes, and change to heatpumps with dubious efficiency to avoid efficient natural gas heating.
BTW, I’m struggling with the unit capacity designation of their battery packs: TWhrs into GWhrs and TWhrs out? You think they meant GW?

For the current state of P2G, punch up ‘Audi e-gas’ in Wertle, where Audi is turning 6MW into a whopping two megawatts worth of hydrogen in ‘the world’s largest power to gas plant’, this per their July 2015 press release. Not much news since then.

Let me ask you a second question: why do you think Frau Merkel/Frau Kramp-Karrenbauer are bringing in 100 billion cubic meters of Russian gas per year through Nordstream 1+2 as of 2020?
I’ll give you a hint:
Might it be because the last nuclear power plant will be switched off in two years, and with coal on its way out in another 15?
A further hint: maybe also because the ‘Energiewende’ stinks and will never lead to 100% RE?

No, but I just downloaded the ‘Roadmap to Nowhere’ it and filed it in my “Green Engineering” file and will read it tonight. The title is somewhat parallel to the ‘Energiewende ins nichts’, dr HW Sinn, which is on YouTube and worth a look.

I know Mark Jacobson sued and then dropped the lawsuit after Christopher Clack and a bunch of others did a job on his 100% RE screed. Jacobson is another one of those true believers, professor @ Stanford, no less.

Roger Andrews dissected his work on Euan Mearns’ blog and there was not a great deal standing afterwards – the hydro ‘Deus ex machina’ was a screamer.

Sadly, Roger passed away a week or so ago – I had some e-mail conversations with him over the years and I can tell you he was an incredibly impressive guy. Worked on his blog up to a week of his death.

Anyway, thanks for the link – always good to see common sense is alive and well.

”On specific energy and climate issues I’m guided by what the data tell me, not by claims made in the scientific literature. This is why you will find me disagreeing with most of the “consensus” views on climate change but not all of them.” – R.A.

Anyway, how can anyone wake up to recognizing something being a scam when it so clearly isn’t? Hey recently I woke up to brushing teeth being a scam. I’ll now militantly go out on blogs and try to discredit the science of personal hygene, because some strange people on the internet convinced me that everything around me is a hoax 😉 … something like that?

Roger had a great look on things: numbers instead of armwaving. The very extensive archives are still on Euan Mearns’ website.

I read the ‘roadmap to nowhere’, very interesting and it hits all the significant points. Great to weave in nuclear – if the Green crowd really believes in ‘Global Warming’ or whatever its called these days, they should embrace it, despite all the yammering about waste etc. These are problems that can be solved.

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